


Touch

by AnnaofAza



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AHEM 10.22, Beating the shit out of someone you love isn't cool, Canon-Typical Violence, Castiel in the Bunker, Discussion of the Crypt Scene, M/M, POV Sam Winchester, Post-Episode: s08e21 The Great Escapist, Psychological Trauma, Sam and Cas friendship, nightmares about hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 12:04:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3936118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaofAza/pseuds/AnnaofAza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean flinches when Cas touches him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch

Dean flinches when Cas touches him.

Sam doesn't notice for a while. He feels haggard in a way that's different from Stanford all-nighters or three-day hunting trips. Dean doesn't know that Sam wakes up in the middle of the night with sweat-soaked blankets, gasping for breath. If Sam closes his eyes, he can see Mom burning, Jessica burning, and just as he's about to run either towards the fire or from the room, something plunges into his chest and drags him agonizingly up the walls. He can hear Lucifer's laughs amongst the crackling of flames, smoke forcing itself deep into his lungs and eyes, and the heat. The heat starts out gently, so gently that Sam can think _this is easy, this is nothing, I can stand this_ before it intensifies. At this point, his legs are dangling, kicking wildly, eyes focused on the ground below. Sometimes it's his bed in the bunker, sometimes it's his and Jess' cheap mattress, sometimes it's the floor of the Cage. But the smell, the _smell_ —

It takes all Sam has not to throw up when Dean, the next afternoon, cooks pulled pork sandwiches.

Cas seems to notice things like this, though, and once or twice, he’s tried to say something, but Sam always shakes his head. Sam knows that if Dean catches even a quarter of how painful these Trials are, he’s going to do something stupid and leave the world infested with demons to save him. It terrifies Sam that he knows his brother so well, how little Dean values his own life.

Sam ignores that he’s technically doing the same.

Right now, Dean is serving up lunch—to Sam, to Kevin, and lastly, to Cas. When Cas reaches out to take the plate from Dean, their fingers brush, and Dean nearly drops the plate. Sam would normally roll his eyes—so cliché—but the look in Dean’s eyes gives him pause. It reminds him of when Dean came back from Hell and when Dean first saw Alastair.

His brother catches the plate, turning away, while Cas quickly begins to eat, even though Sam fully knows that Cas is still an angel and doesn’t need sustenance. (Which begs the question: why did Dean make four sandwiches?) Sam barely takes a bite, and excuses it as the result of a big breakfast when Dean asks.

But all he can think about is, _What did Cas do to my brother?_

* * *

Sam confronts Cas in the library. Kevin is in his room, resting from a migraine, and Dean is off grocery shopping, so if this escalates, Sam would rather not have to deal with distractions. As Sam sits down and watches Cas shelve books, he keeps a small tally of the things he’s begun to notice: the times Dean’s been jerking away when Cas accidently bumps into him or brushes against his arm in the hallways. His head begins to hurt, and Sam feels so tired. He's suddenly glad that he took a seat.

“Cas,” Sam says slowly, feeling it best to get this out of the way. “Can you tell me why Dean is suddenly refusing to let you touch him?”

Sam remembers muffled pleas in the cramped motel rooms, a beer at every meal and more, trembling in the hospital bed while machines clicked and whirled. _What Alastair did to me_ , Dean once confessed, so drunk that he didn’t remember the next morning, _I thought—I thought he would just gut me, but..._ For an awful, awful moment, Sam dreaded the next words. He knew what his brother was going to say and didn’t want to hear it. No, he couldn’t bear it, even the shape of it.

So he’d jumped in: “Dean, you don’t have to talk about that.”

Sam now wishes he’d let Dean speak. Maybe, maybe, if Dean said it out loud, then he might have come to terms with it in some way.

So when he woke up one night and saw Cas in a motel room, gently talking to Dean with a hand on his shoulder, Sam let him. There was something Cas could give Dean that Sam couldn’t, not with the demon blood and Ruby and his one-track goal.

“I beat your brother, in the crypt a few weeks ago.” Cas says, and Sam nearly drops a pen he’s been toying with. “I told him once I’d never do it again, but—“

“This isn’t the _first—_?“ Then Sam recalls: Dean slumped over Cas’s shoulder, the question of what happened, and Cas’ harsh _me_ and unceremonious dumping on the bed. The whole incident had gotten lost in Apocalypse things—Sam still can’t believe he refers to one of the worst years of his life so Buffy-blasé—and no one had ever discussed it.

Until now, that is.

“I apologized to him afterwards, and I told him that what I did was inexcusable. I was angry that he was giving up so easily, selfishly throwing away his freedom and life, betraying every effort we made—it was a dark time, but it was…” Cas hesitates. “It wasn’t right. I didn’t accomplish anything by brutalizing him, and the fact that I _beat_ him within an inch of his life…”

 _You raised him from Perdition,_ Sam thinks. _And his body was torn apart by Hellhounds, rotting away for months. Cas had to rebuild it..._

“Blasphemy,” Cas finishes, so softly that Sam at first doesn’t catch it.

He genuinely sounds _sorry._

And Sam just doesn’t understand.

So he snaps, the fire still cooking in his veins: “What exactly happened down there? Why would you—if you said you wouldn’t—”

“Dean didn’t tell you?”

Sam almost rolls his eyes, but only shakes his head. “No. The Spark Notes. Mostly that you went kind of weird, left him, and bolted off with the angel tablet. Didn’t make much sense, but when I tried to bring it up, he told me to get herbal tea and listen to music.”

Cas sighs, leaning against the bookshelf. “All right. I guess I should…”

He tells Sam everything that wasn’t too clear: Naomi, the rescue from Purgatory, Samandriel, the crypt. He tells Sam about the agonizing piercing in his mind, like the drill Naomi forced into his eye. He tells Sam how everything happened, to him, at once: twisting Dean’s arm, cracking it right on the joint, crushing his cheekbone, blinding him in one eye. He even tells Sam how it felt: one part pleading in the white room, the other coolly continuing with the feeling of warm blood on his fingers. It was disconnected but _not_ —Cas can hardly explain, but Sam sort of understands. He remembers beating his brother against the Impala, hardly aware until the last, possible second, when Dean had looked up at him without a word.

But Dean said this to Cas: _We’re family. We need you. I need you. _

And Cas had dropped his blade.

Sam now drops his jaw. “And?” he asks.

“And what?”

“Well, what happened next?”

Cas winces. “I healed him. And explained a little to him.”

“Only a little?”

“I was going to tell him more. But he asked me…” Cas pulls up a chair and sits down heavily. “What broke the connection.”

“Did you tell him?”

“No. No.” Cas says. “I barely understood it myself at the time. I was still recovering from what Naomi did to me…” He shudders, trembling and sweating. Sam’s not used to such emotional outbursts. He lives with Dean, after all, and Sam usually doesn’t want to break down like this. _Stow your crap,_ Dean still says, John Winchester haunting every word, and everyone else seemed to say the same thing: Bobby, Ruby, Zachariah, Lucifer, even Cas, in the beginning.

But to hell with it. To hell with feeling uncomfortable. This isn’t about him. This is about his friend going through a fucking trauma.

So Sam listens.

“…The way she dug into my memories, twisted them, made me forget my promise. And I have no right to complain. I could feel Dean’s fear, and I knew—I know now that if I hadn’t been able to—I would have—I would have—“

Sam waits.

“Killed him.” Cas buries his face in his hands. “I would have killed him.”

Sam tentatively pats Cas’ shoulder. It feels sort of awkward, a _there there_ sort of thing, but Cas seems to relax, becoming slowly grounded. A gentler way, Sam suddenly thinks, than pressing against a bullet wound in his palm.

“You didn’t kill him, Cas,” Sam says. “He’s alive. He made us sandwiches.”

“But I could have. I could sense his fear and his pain, and I couldn’t _stop._ Naomi told me it was the way it was meant to be, that I wanted it, that—“ Cas shakes his head, furiously. “I didn’t want it, Sam. If I killed the one I—“

The angel freezes, moving his shoulder away from Sam’s grasp. Sam lets him.

“I know,” Sam says. “I’ve known for a while. Since Dean came out of Purgatory without you.”

“I betrayed him there, too. All I’ve done to save him, I’ve only hurt him. The whole mess started with me, when I thought I could save the world by myself. I’m a _monster._ ”

Something twinges inside of Sam, something familiar. “Hey. Stop telling yourself that. We’ve forgiven you a long time ago. Besides, it’s a blame game all around, right from the Apocalypse. And in my case, Azazel—“

“You weren’t responsible. Azazel is the one to blame—“

Sam grins weakly. “See? There you go. Just blame everything on him.” But quickly sobering up, Sam continues: “Look, Cas, we can hash this out all our lives, and we’re not going to get anything done if we keep it up. We need to accept what we did, and learn from it.” Sam points a finger at him. “You need to talk to Dean. Get some things straight with him.”

“I don’t want to hurt him.” Cas’ voice is quiet. “Not again.”

“Tell him that.” Sam watches Cas hesitate. He hasn’t forgiven himself yet, and it’s going to be a while before he does.

Before Cas attends up, he pauses. “Sam. Your nightmares?”

Sam waves a hand in the air. “They’re fine.”

“If I had more power at the moment, I could banish them—“

“Hey,” Sam shakes his head, quietly grateful that someone noticed. “Save your strength for yourself.”

 _I’m not going to be here much longer,_ Sam thinks, as he watches Cas go. _So you need to heal up, and be ready. Because after I’m gone, Dean’s going to need you._


End file.
